Washington, DC — Joseph Kabila, the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, visits the White House today to discuss challenges to his country's fragile democracy. The last time a President of this sprawling Central African nation met with President Bush was 1989 - Congo was then called Zaire and the President Bush in question was our 41st president, George H. W. Bush. The ensuing eighteen years have been calamitous for the people of Congo. The current President Bush can help avert further tragedy by pressing President Kabila to abandon plans to launch a military offensive in Congo's volatile eastern provinces.
With fertile land and abundant natural resources, Congo could be an economic powerhouse and a regional breadbasket. Instead, the country is a basket-case. A brutal regional war ripped Congo apart from 1998 to 2004, and more than four million Congolese died from a destructive cocktail of violence, disease, and malnutrition.
Following a landmark peace agreement and a tumultuous political transition backed by the world's largest United Nations peacekeeping operation, Kabila was elected President late last year. However, elections were not a panacea to Congo's ills. More than one thousand Congolese still die each day from continued hostilities and the crippling effects of widespread displacement.
The presence in eastern Congo of a Rwandan militia called the FDLR - made up of more than 6,000 Hutu rebels with links to the 1994 genocide in their home country - is the proximate cause of a power struggle that threatens to reignite full-scale war. The Congolese army's inability and UN peacekeepers' reluctance to remove the FDLR from Congo creates a security vacuum in the East, where women and girls are routinely subjected to appalling acts of sexual torture.
A Congolese General and suspected war criminal named Laurent Nkunda has rebelled from the army to fight the FDLR. Nkunda claims to protect eastern Congo's Tutsi population, but the atrocities committed by his forces are fueling rising anti-Tutsi sentiment in the region. The prevailing climate of impunity allows all sides - Nkunda, the FDLR, the Congolese army, and local militias - to attack and exploit civilians without fear of consequences; nearly 400,000 people have fled their homes since January.
Kabila's government tried to integrate Nkunda loyalists into the national army earlier this year, but the process backfired, strengthening Nkunda militarily and emboldening government officials who favor a military solution over political negotiations. Kabila now rejects calls for a UN special envoy to support talks with Nkunda and last week ordered his military to draw up plans to disarm Nkunda's fighters by force.
Military action would almost certainly be catastrophic. Despite some recent successes, the Congolese army is far too weak to defeat Nkunda's more disciplined forces without help. A growing body of evidence indicates that the Congolese army has made a pact with the devil, collaborating with the FDLR against Nkunda. This alliance threatens to draw the Rwandans more directly into the conflict-on Nkunda's side. Rwandan President Paul Kagame is no huge fan of Nkunda, but a revitalized FDLR poses an exceptional danger that Rwanda will not ignore.
During their White House meeting, President Bush must deliver a clear message to President Kabila that political dialogue is the only acceptable way forward. The State Department is already talking behind the scenes to Nkunda, who recently expressed a willingness to negotiate. Now the U.S. and others - particularly France and South Africa - should press Kabila to accept UN-led mediation.
The U.S. can grease the wheels for a negotiated settlement by helping to develop a coherent international plan to deal with the pretext for Nkunda's rebellion: the FDLR. The FDLR is on a U.S. list of terrorist organizations, and the Bush Administration ought to work through the UN Security Council to implement targeted sanctions against individuals who provide arms and other support to the FDLR.
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The U.S. should also press its Rwandan allies to take steps that encourage some of the FDLR rebels to disarm and return to Rwanda. President Kagame understandably refuses to negotiate with genocidaires, but his government knows who among the FDLR bear responsibility for the horrors of 1994. Many of the FDLR rank-and-file were under the age of 12 during the genocide, and providing better resettlement packages could induce defections, isolate the worst war criminals, and eliminate a major source of destabilization in the region.
A single White House tête-à-tête will not resolve the array of problems associated with 10 years of unrelenting conflict in Congo, but President Bush can provide the necessary diplomatic pressure to thwart yet another destructive war in the heart of Africa.
Prendergast is co-Chair and Thomas-Jensen is a policy advisor at ENOUGH: The Project to End Genocide and Crimes against Humanity. Both have conducted field research in eastern Congo this year.
